


If I Can't Give You Words

by returntosaturn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Babies, Books, F/M, Family, Miscarriage, Newt writes, Redemption, late miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 15:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10924683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: He find himself restless, not in want of breakfast, unable to leave her side for the beasts in his case lest she wake up and find herself alone. So he settles at the chair at his desk, faces the wall tacked with sketches, strips of notes and scrawled reminders of this footnote or that, and the black, shining, well-oiled typewriter and its keys like taunting jaws.// Newt in the aftermath of Tina's first miscarriage.





	If I Can't Give You Words

The morning after is grey.

He rises, though not having slept, weighted and aching, to linger at the window. She finally, _finally_ sleeps. Thinly, he knows. But she is still now, and unburdened for the moment. He isn’t sure if it’s a relief, but somehow it must count for something.

He find himself restless, not in want of breakfast, unable to leave her side for the beasts in his case lest she wake up and find herself alone. So he settles at the chair at his desk, faces the wall tacked with sketches, strips of notes and scrawled reminders of this footnote or that, and the black, shining, well-oiled typewriter and its keys like taunting jaws.

And there, he allows himself himself cry.

Its a meek, slow affair that tips out of him, dotting the dusty tabletop like rain on the savannah. He lets it finish until he’s only there staring into the evidence, still with no thoughts or reason to apply to what has happened to them.

What four fleeting months of joy have now come to.

He stays, shivering shoulders and tensed muscle, until she stirs with a small gasp.

Dutifully, he goes to her, tucks in beside her, and as careful as he is not to jostle her, to pain her anymore, she clutches at his nightshirt with tight fists. He hesitates around his hands a moment until he settles fine fingers into her hair and has no voice to whisper words he knows are idle.

-

“I want to try again…”

“Shh…”

“No. I do,” she insists. It is a month later, and she is only now coming back to herself, like waking up.

She picks at their small meal, swiping the crust of her bread through the remains of her soup. He’s satisfied that she’s at least eaten anything at all.

“I do…” she says again. It small, quiet, but he hears the curb of her usual determination.

“Let’s wait until some time has passed...”

The thin veil of normalcy, of routine they’ve drawn between them, shreds at the clatter of her spoon against the tabletop.

“ _Stop_ treating me like that,” she grinds. “Like I’m…” 

His eye twitch away from her on instinct off the heat in her voice, glaring at the tangled tassels of the rug.

“Like you can’t stand to even _look_ at me anymore.” Her tone is stone flat. 

“That’s it, isn’t it? I’m different, now, right? _Useless?_ ”

“Tina, you know that is not _at all_ …” he begins, sterner than he intends, but the scrape of her chair makes the words die at his tongue.

A door snaps shut, and he's left to right the kitchen by himself, spooning leftover meat and vegetables into a pot for the creatures, but long thoughts and tired tears bring him to forget it.

-

When he gathers enough of himself together to approach her, she's asleep, knees curled at her chest, her hair a frizzing cloud about her head.

He brushes it back, tucks it neatly behind her ear, leans to press a tentative kiss to her salty cheek, and turns to pick through the wardrobe for his bedclothes.

He tosses aside his tie, his waistcoat, watching moonlight’s play in the sheer white curtains, blinking at the pique of weariness and a certain solemn loneliness, an old visitor he has not felt since the span between his expulsion and the War.

A strangling shame that pinches at his throat and threatens his breath.

He wonders, in the silence, why they must be the ones to bear this. They, who have fought real battles, have taken up wands against enemies, have seen the death of parents and friends and family, and the petty entitlement of the thought brings him to tear all over again, letting them drop bitterly, freely while his fingers fidget aimlessly at the buttons of his shirt. 

This, in itself, is a paradox. For all these feats, who are they? They have never considered themselves great or accomplished, and so why should he think that it matters now in their grief? That they should be somehow exempt?

His hands tremble too much to grasp at the last pearly button, so he gives up to shuck the length of it over his head.

“I'm sorry…”

Tina’s voice is small behind him, a tinkling bell that cuts the quiet.

He turns to find her still curled against the mattress, eyes telltale bright in the dark of the room, and he fights the squeeze at his chest.

She lets herself be held, coiling arms around his neck and pressing her face to his shoulder when he kneels at the bedside.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t...That I wasn’t able to give you...” she starts, drawing a harried breath that might match one he’d heard, years ago, when they faced death together. He pushes the tears from her cheek and tries and hopes that his expression is even, pressing his lips together against a tremble. 

He steels and stands to budge in beside her, cradle her head to his chest, welcoming the weight of her. A moment of silence passes while tangled words cling at his tongue.

“There is nothing I will be able to say to persuade you of the fact that you’ve done nothing wrong in this,” he starts. “In fact, I’m sorry for misjudgement in what I said tonight.”

She twists, lifting her chin to speak, but he goes on.

“I do not pretend to know that I possess the appropriate words. I don’t know that the solution lies in words at all....But Tina...I promised to stand beside you as your partner in all things. I do not intend on falling short in that promise. If I can’t give you words, let me remain beside you. Let me just...rest with you.”

She’s still, but he knows she’s still listening. 

“Perhaps we can help...one another,” he manages, a throaty whisper that he seals his lips against, swallowing at the pressure in his throat.

She shifts, lifting her face level to his, and kisses at hot tears.

Sleep does not come for some time, but there is comfort enough in the waiting.

-

A son is born the next year, healthy and squalling and perfect. Her sob is a break of triumph, pain, victory, and resolution, and he lays the babe to her chest and whispers his praise, stroking ginger hair and a wrinkled brow.

They call him Simon, and he grows strong and happy and meddlesome, curious as his father, stubborn as his mother.

A girl blesses them after his third birthday, and they call her Delta. This pregnancy is difficult, and Tina draws back into places unhealed, shored by Newt’s assurance and Simon’s smiles. She is born tiny and quiet, and there is no sound in the room until she hiccups a wet breath and bellows a cry. Tina does not shed a tear, but holds her close, whispers something against her pink cheek that Newt is not privy to, and does not ask to be.

She is a force of her own, sturdy against her gale of an older brother. She loves being outside, and loves to learn, loves to plant in the garden with her mother only for the sake of getting her hands dirty.

He supposes it is her sixth birthday when the thought settles into his mind; something he'd passively considered but never felt quite certain on the timing of, until now.

He spends the evening in his office, typewriter clunking through the quiet of the house until he’s too weary to form a conscious thought.

He begins again at the break of the morning, pages flying and ink on his fingertips.

It is Delta that peeks in at lunchtime, tiptoeing across the rug. “What are you working on, Papa?” she asks without pretense.

He turns to smile down at her, her mother’s dark hair, dark eyes, Queenie’s dimples, his freckles. 

The typewriter gives a mechanical growl when he tugs the paper from the roll. He prepares a small section, evening the stack against the desk before he holds it out to her.

“Would you like to read it?”

She presses pink lips together in delight, anticipation, and gives a nod.

He lets her sit in his lap in his swiveling desk chair, and they read until dinner. He helps her to decipher the more difficult words, pointing with her to syllables and sounds, although she can recognize nearly all of the creatures’ names on sight by now. At the end of the first chapter, she declares her endorsement.

Tina comes to fetch them, and Delta scurries past without so much as a word while Newt binds the draft with a banker’s clip and tucks it into the bottom drawer of his desk.

“What are you two up to?” she questions when he meets her with a kiss at the threshold.

“Just reading, my dear,” he says, and she quirks her eyebrow suspiciously.

“Mhm. You know I can tell when you’re lying?”

“Yes you are quite skilled in that department, love,” is all he says, and ushers her from the room with a hand at her back, drawing the door closed with a click.

-

A third child is a surprise and sees a necessary move, their second since Delta’s birth. The children will have more room to play, and a larger garden to hide in. The new house is near the sea, hemmed in by a constant breeze that Tina thinks will be perfect for walks and sipping morning coffee. Newt proffers for pens for the creatures, the small ones. The Mooncalves at least, and the birds. A hanging nest for Dougal. And a wiggentree. Tina rolls her eyes and concedes.

They pack their tiny cottage, rifle through forgotten toys and too-small clothes, unread books and stale potions.

Newt finds Tina in his office, the only room left to tend to. His desk is stayed in minor disarray, half packed and still half it’s typical explosion of quills, sliced envelopes, and typewriter ribbons. She is crosslegged on the floor, growing belly and all, in a halo of paper and ink, and blinks up to him with a wet face. His bottom draw hangs open, the secret manuscript clutched in her hands.

He calls it _A Children’s Anthology of Monsters_ and ships it for Obscurus Books--attention: Augustus Worme--when Tina reaches her third trimester.

It reaches publication at the first birthday of their third child--a son--and The Daily Prophet calls it “warm” and “charming” and a “masterpiece companion to the best seller.” It sits atop the Best Seller List for several weeks, but Newt doesn’t keep track of the exact count. 

It is the one and only edition, and while he thinks it vain to vouch for its perfection, he can attest to the sense of conclusion it seems to bring, at least within himself. His children enjoy the illustrations, and the captivating tales (and he will never divulge to them, or the dozens of children that ask throughout the years, if they live in truth or fiction). Tina’s favorite part, he knows, is the inscription. It reads:

_There are some that cannot be held with hands, some that cannot be seen with mortal’s eyes, but in all the world, in all of my travels, I firmly hold the belief that there does not exist anything so pure, exhilarating, and wild as these: creatures...and children.”_

**Author's Note:**

> [@allscissorsallpaper](http://allscissorsallpaper.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
